The Wanting Comes In Waves

All Sam/Dean, All The Time

Fic: Potential Prophecy

Author's Note: Not my characters, only my words. Set sometime after 8.19 "Taxi Driver" For my spnspiration bingo this is for the mixed-media space. Written for the April Fool's spnspiration challenge, written for story_monger, who has requested: Kevin goes to McDonald's

Summary: Kevin’s words, written on a crumpled, grease-stained food bag. found by an employee who kept it, because it somehow seemed important at the time.

Transcript follows the images (for those who cannot read The Prophet's handwriting!)

So yes.

This is me now.

The Prophet of the Lord, formerly known as Kevin Tran.

In a goddamn McDonald’s. (I’m NOT lovin’ it!)

No, I’m not a vegetarian like I used to be.

I am indeed now an omnivore.

Has life handed me onions?!

Yeah, but way too many to just make into quarter pounders.

I blame the Winchesters.

For so many things, but for this most of all.

I know I shouldn’t blame Sam for any of this.

He’s not the one who decided to make me Prophet, and he is the one doing the TRIALS.

And then there’s Dean, he’s only tried to make me stay on task, in that big-brother way he has. How Sam puts up with him, I will never understand.

It’s been so long now, I don’t even remember eating healthful stuff.

All the things my mom taught me to cook.

But here I am in a McDonald’s.

Again.

Mouth full of pre-chewed hamburger meat and unripe tomatoes.

As I squeeze the ketchup out of the foil packets onto the golden fries, I hear it.

Crowley laughing at me again.

His terrible wheezing laugh echoing through my mind.

Taunting me that I’ll never really be free from him.

The weeks he held me prisoner have been blanked out.

I eat those memories before they can resurface.

Stuffing them back inside, chewing them completely along with the bun that really needs no chewing.

I don’t have time to be a victim.

What I do have is a job to do.

It’s all I have at this point.

And I need energy to get it done, otherwise all of this crap has NO MEANING.

That is why I’m here.

Eating my weight in Value-Meals.

Inhaling the calories, the grease, the crunch and the salt. Refueling myself as cheaply and quickly as possible. “The Winchester Way” as Dean refers to it.

NUTRITION INFORMATION I don’t want to know!

HOW ARE WE DOING? Not very well, thanks for asking.

The tablet waits for me.

Back on Garth’s ship.

The tablet might as well be here though.

I can picture it.

I can’t not picture it.

I can see it here before me on the chipped formica table.

I can hear the roar of its words over the sound of the kids squabbling over Happy Meals toys.

I can smell the ancient stone past the cloying scent of the fryer.

It wants to be read.

It wants to be known.

It wants me to tell the story it has held all this time.

It does not matter what I want.

I don’t want.

No, that’s not right. I do want.

I WANT OUT.

I want to not know.

I want my Mom back.

My mom who sold her soul for me.

Who held Crowley inside her.

But I can’t think about her.

Or what I want.

None of it matters.

Not when the tablet is there, waiting for me to be its voice.

I’ve got work to do.

~~~

The girl folds up the white paper bag neatly, slips it into her jeans back pocket and goes on to clean the next table. The rest of her shift she thinks about the words she’d read, and what they meant. She pictures the intense, handsome young man who’d eaten so many burgers in one sitting that all of the counter staff had taken notice. Was this the start of a writing project of some kind, or was he someone struggling with delusions? She wonders why the bag had so many salt packets in it.

When she gets home that night, she takes the bag out again and unfolds it, reads it again, and then hangs it up on her refrigerator with the Garfield loves lasagna magnet that her mom gave her for Christmas. Whenever she sees that paper she thinks of the self-named prophet, KevinTran, and hopes that he’s okay wherever he’s ended up. His written words on the burger wrapper resonate for her, every time she reads them she feels as if she’s been to Bible Camp for a week. Fresh and clean inside and out, re-inspired and rejuvenated in her connection to the Divine. The words of her french-fried prophet do that for her. Every time.

The next time her mom visits, she notices the bag stuck up on the fridge, mostly because of the Garfield magnet, glad to see her daughter actually using her gift. After she hears the story of where the strange writing came from, her response is: “If there are prophets among us, why would they not eat at McDonald’s occasionally?”

Thanks! Yes, that "I don't have to be a victim" thing really came out of me envisioning Kevin giving himself a pep talk. He seems like the self-motivated kind of person who would be able to do that, even in dire circumstances.

Ohhhh my gosh this is so clever! The medium is genius and the words themselves are so raw and I think perfectly capture Kevin's mindset. This is a beautiful character study. Thanks for an amazing prompt fill!

You are so very welcome. That prompt of yours just hit me right in the gut and this kind of poured out. I just had to delay posting until I could actually go to McDonald's for the raw materials! It was a very tasty fill for me. I hadn't had their fries in quite a while, still yummy. Anyways, I'm super happy that you liked it!